Djamila Serir is one of the Community Energy Advisors working on our Liverpool Affordable Warmth project

Energy Projects Plus delivers the Liverpool Affordable Warmth project, funded by British Gas Energy Trust.

Recognising the need to support people who don’t speak English as a first language, we started to work with Liverpool Arabic Centre to spread the message about energy advice further and support those who are struggling with energy issues.

We now run two sessions a month in partnership with the Arabic Centre – an energy awareness session focusing on damp, mould, condensation and providing some energy saving tips, and a pre-bookable drop-in session where people can benefit from specific advice about their individual situation. We’re also in the process of translating our energy advice materials into Arabic, to support our clients further.

Djamila Serir is one of the Community Energy Advisors working on the project. She speaks Arabic and met with one of the team from the Arabic Centre through referrals to the service before exploring potential partnership opportunities further.

Djamila said:

“Although I speak Arabic, I’ve never had to use the centre – I didn’t even know where it was. We worked together to support some people who were referred to us before we formalised the partnership properly. They support people in every aspect of their lives but told us they were seeing loads of people who had energy issues, so that’s where we were able to step in to provide that specialist support.
For some people, just the idea of people picking up the phone is a barrier, so when they get through and there’s an extra language barrier, it takes time and can be very frustrating. It can take an hour to get through in the first place, and many will eventually be able to translate but it can take extra time. By having a partnership like this, we’re able to support people there and then.

It’s not a one-off thing either, our support lasts. Every person I support, I probably speak to five, six, or seven times. For example, it may start with voucher support for a top up meter, but what happens when that voucher doesn’t work? We’re there to help them every step of the way. We’re building relationships and our support isn’t transactional.”

The charity recently supported a woman who had received an energy bill of more than £2,000. She realised it wasn’t right but didn’t know how to challenge it. With Djamila’s support, it was found that the meter had been read incorrectly and charges should only have been £75.

And on the back of this success, the charity is looking to expand is multi-lingual services further to support other communities in need.

Project Manager Lisa Boothroyd said:

“Within the last couple of years, certainly since the pandemic and with the cost-of-living crisis, we’re seeing a lot of people coming to us with issues around rising fuel and water debt. Utility providers are not being very accessible to speakers of other languages. Working with places like Liverpool Arabic Centre allows us to really break down those barriers. Building on this success, we’re now preparing to work with other organisations.”

The charity is also working with a wide range of likeminded organisations such as Raise, The Big Help Project, Everton Football Club, The Life Rooms, Cobalt Housing and Clubmoor Children’s Centre to widen the message around energy advice.